With more and more single parent and two income families the time we have to prepare tasty and healthy dinners is at a premium.
To fill this need, multiple ready to cook meal kit services have emerged, offering somewhat easy to prepare food .
HelloFresh has emerged as one of the top meal kit delivery services and a good starting place for anyone looking to purchase one of these kits for the first time.
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How Does Hello Fresh Work?
You can now enjoy wholesome and healthy home-cooked meals without the hassles of a lot of planning and going shopping for each meal. So, how does HelloFresh work? Once you register on the site, you need to pick a meal plan according to your dietary preference. You can start by selecting from the three plans available – Classic, Veggie and Family.
- Classic Plan: In terms of the weekly recipes, the Classic Plan offers the largest variety of fish, meat and seasonal produce. The Classic Plan offers you a choice of 6 different menu selections that you can choose from. You can log into your account and set it up and HelloFresh will select the meals for you. From the Classic menu, you have the option of choosing any combination of meals you like, in case you do not like the meal selection made for you and you want to change it.
- Veggie Plan: The Veggie Plan consists of meatless recipes for a family of 2 or 4 and the recipes are loaded with seasonal produce, grains and protein, keeping in mind the dietary needs of vegetarians.
- Family Plan: The Family Plan contains yummy kid-friendly recipes for a family of 4 members that is sure to delight your entire family.
HelloFresh is an extremely flexible and convenient service which allows you to choose if you want to cook for 2-4 people and the number of recipes you want in a week. You can also select your meals from a chef-curated menu of 15 delicious and nutritious recipes developed by the in-house team of chefs along with dietitians every week. The recipes depend on the meal plan you select.
Once you do this, the HelloFresh team plans your meals, selects high-quality ingredients and does all the grocery shopping for you and the HelloFresh box will be delivered to your doorstep, free of cost. All you have to do is simply follow the super-easy recipes and you can have your home-cooked meal ready in a jiffy.
You can manage your HelloFresh account from anywhere at all. You can modify your existing HelloFresh meal plan, manage your menu or pause/resume your delivery from your computer or via the HelloFresh Android and iOS apps.
Sign Up for a HelloFresh Account>>
Ingredients
All the ingredients used by HelloFresh are of top quality and are sourced from independent producers. The deliveries are made in insulated boxes which are layered with ice packs that help keep your ingredients cool and fresh.
Every meal comes along with a recipe card that gives you step-by-step instructions on the preparation, the ingredients list and also the nutritional information. And, all the ingredients are pre-portioned and packed for every meal in separate individual kits, so that you don’t have to go through the hassle of sorting out the ingredients for each meal.
Pausing or Canceling Service
Even though the service is subscription based, you do not necessarily have to order meals. You can simply pause your deliveries when you don’t want them and resume when you want to restart up to 5 days earlier. All you have to do is log in to your account and click on the pause or resume on any of the days. And, if you want, you also have the option of completely canceling the service at any time as there is no contract.
Pricing
Hello Fresh started with just one kind of plan, but they now offer three plans in their two categories.
Meal Plans
The main plans you see advertised everywhere are the meal kit boxes. The three plans offered are:
Veggie Plan
- Cost: $9.99 per serving
- Number of People: 2-4
- Recipes Per Week: 3
Classic Plan
- Cost: $9.99 per serving
- Number of People: 2-4
- Recipes Per Week: 2, 3, 4
Family Plan
- Cost: $8.74 per serving
- Number of People: 4
- Recipes Per Week: 2, 3
Wines
HelloFresh first started offering wine packages on their site in May of 2017. The plans offered are:
Seasonal Plan
- Six 750 ml bottles
- Assorted varieties
- $89/month
Red Wine Plan
- Six 750 ml bottles
- Assorted red wine varieties
- $89/month
White Wine Plan
- Six 750 ml bottles
- Assorted white wine varieties
- $89/month
Allergy and Dietary Concerns
The Classic Plan offers options in case you have special dietary needs and each week, you have meal options which are seafood, pork and beef free.
While the meals do not make any special accommodations for food allergies, all the ingredients are packed in separate packets which are sealed, which allows you to replace or remove any ingredients that you are allergic to or do not want to use in your meals.
However, the website has a list of all the potential allergens. All the meals come along with a complete list of ingredients and the nutritional breakdown of each recipe.
How HelloFresh Can Save Money
With both my wife and I working it is definitely hard to get a variety of food on the table on a regular basis. This is compounded by the reality that I am a picky eater.
The great thing about HelloFresh, and how it saves us money, is that all the ingredients come packaged in just the right amount. So if my family wants to try a new recipe, that the kids and I may or may not like, We don’t have to purchase large quantities of the spices and other ingredients we may never use again.
So we are very careful with our selections and only buy meals that we cannot cook with the ingredients we already have in our normal shopping.
HelloFresh Promotions
Currently HelloFresh is offering a discount for new customers. Right now, anyone who signs up with a new account, will get $20 off each of their first three meal kits.
Get $20 off first three kits with HelloFresh>>
Company History
HelloFresh was started in Berlin, Germany by Thomas Griesel and Dominik Richter in the year 2011. It all began when the duo packed and delivered shopping bags of ingredients by hand to their first 10 customers.
HelloFresh was funded by Rocket Internet, a German company initially and they began their operations in 2012 by delivering meal kits to customers and expanded their operations to the UK, US, Netherlands and Australia. By 2014, the company was delivering around 100,000 meals a month.
By the year 2015, HelloFresh had a subscriber base of 250,000 which has grown to around 1.3 million by the end of 2017. Started as one of the pioneers in the meal-kit industry, HelloFresh has its operations in the UK, US, Canada, Netherlands, Germany, Australia, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland and Luxemburg.
Pros
- The portion sizes of the meals are quite large.
- The meals are extremely easy to prepare and can be prepared very quickly. Typically, the prep time for a meal is around 30 minutes and there are only around 6 steps to follow before you have your meal ready.
- The meals come with recipe and instruction cards which are extremely easy to follow. And, with the shipment of every meal, you get specific recipe and instruction cards, with easy to follow directions.
- Each recipe comes with a detailed list of ingredients so that you know what your meal contains and it also comes with detailed nutritional information.
- The HelloFresh subscription plans are extremely flexible and you can pause and resume or cancel your subscription at any time at all.
- HelloFresh has a wide area of operations in around 10 countries across Europe and the United States.
Cons
- There are only limited recipe options you can choose from per week.
- The Veggie Plan and Family Plan do not have a lot of meal options to choose from.
- The meals cater to only families of 2-4 members and do not cater to those who want meals for a single person.
- Does not include any dessert options.
- There is a lot of packaging to deal with and the kit contains several smaller packets for each ingredient.
Bottom Line
Hello Fresh has placed their company firmly in the top four of the best meal kit delivery services. With good shipping times and top level customer service you can feel very comfortable taking the service for a spin.
On top of that they are staying competitive on pricing, even though they are not the cheapest of the food delivery services.
Having had good experience with the company myself, I have no problem recommending anyone take them for a spin and at least take advantage of the promotional deal on the first three kits you order.
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